Assignment #4:Summary of Part 1 of "Tinkers" by Paul Harding and it's Relationship to my Current Body of Work

Sarah Zuckerman

October 4, 2013

Research Methodologies AVT 600

Assignment #4

Summary of Part 1 of "Tinkers" by Paul Harding 

and it's Relationship to my Current Body of Work

Paul Harding’s “Tinkers”, a Pulitzer Prize fiction novel, explores the mindset of a man eight days before his death. George Washington Crosby recalls memories of his life including, and predominantly of his father Howard. Within the structure of this novel, Howard also recalls his memories, and the two become intertwined as father and son inducing their life experiences and how they relate to each other, their life’s work, and their love of tinkering, mostly for George, with clocks. The idea of time is prominent as George’s last days approach and as his life of being a horologist shapes how he remembers his personal time. This novel relates to my work through the use of memory, loss, and parent child relationships. Through my work I recall memories and work through the idea of loss as it relates to my parent child relationship. As George tries to evoke his father he has a more difficult time doing so the longer the years have been. Also he struggles with the idea of being forgotten. As I work to act in a way to remember my mother, I see the truth in his words,

“…be mingled with in endless ways of other people’s memories, so that I will remain a set of impressions porous and open to combination with all the other vitreous squares floating about in whoever else’s frames, because there is always space left in reserve for their own time, and to my great-grandchildren, with more space than tiles, I will be no more than the smoky arrangement of a set of rumors, and to their great-grandchildren I will be no more than a tint of some obscure color, and to their great grandchildren nothing they ever know about, and so what army of strangers and ghosts has shaped and colored me until back to Adam… But it doesn’t stop; it simply ends. It is a final pattern scattered without so much as a pause at the end, at the end of what, at the end of this” (pages 65,66 Tinkers, Paul Harding).

This passage illustrates how I think of memories of persons past and my concern for how they will be remembered. I want to remember them but also live my life in the present. I feel it is important to have a collection of memories, shared, so that future persons know who you are, and also that at this point in time I can look to remember those to make up my past and influence who I am today.

Throughout the novel there are many facets of memory that are explored. Some rely on keepsakes; that at their sight remind people of things they had long since forgotten. Some are of sounds George hears, particularly the silence while in his deathbed, and ponders this silence until he realizes that all the clocks have wound down, due to his inability to get up to wind them, as he is bed ridden. His wife comments that she finds the ticking of the clocks an annoyance but there is a realization later that the sound actually came as a comfort after her husband’s death, and reminded her of him. This idea of different sensory perceptions accumulating to produce and induce memories I think is interesting to take into account – the effect that a number of these senses can have one you can in one moment be profound and in another disturbing.

Also encased within this novel is the idea of items passed on from one human to another as they know they are entering or have passed the stage of death. In one portion, Howard receives an old book from a man he helped for many years as he delivered goods to him while he lived as a hermit in the nearby woods. Before the hermit died he left a personal token, the novel The Scarlet Letter signed by the author a personal friend of his, for Howard. The things people leave us before they die, or things that happen upon us because of death are reminders and confirmations of who those people were. I think that keepsakes are independent of people but of comfort, sometimes, to those who are left behind. All of these ideas culminate in my work of memory and relationships in conjunction with death. 

Assignment #3: Reading List

Sarah Zuckerman

September 23, 2013

Research Methodologies AVT 600

Assignment #3

Assignment #3: Reading List for Semester

"Tinkers" by Paul Harding

"Marking the Mind: A History of Memory" by Kurt Danzinger

"A Basic-Systems Approach to Autobiographical Memory" by David C. Rubin

"The Fate of Early Memories" by Mark L. Howe 

"Ideology and the State" by Louis Althusser

"A Field Guide for getting Lost" by Rebecca Solnit



Further Reading (TBC):

"Wonderlust: A History of Walking" by Rebecca Solnit

"Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl

"Grief: The Journey From Suffering to Resilience" (http://www.gapsychology.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=305) by William F. 

Doverspike, Ph.D.

"Constructing Death: The Sociology of Dying and Bereavement" by Clive Seale

"A Grief Observed" by C.S. Lewis

"The Problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis

"On Death and Dying" by Elisabeth Kubler Ross

Assignment #2: Summary of Articles Institutional Critique, Ecology of social and biological systems - Hans Haacke AND Reverse Anthropology - Guillermo Gómez-Peña

 Sarah Zuckerman

September 14, 2013

Research Methodologies AVT 600

Assignment #2

Summary of Articles

Institutional Critique, Ecology of social and biological systems - Hans Haacke

     Haacke believes that the term industry is apt and beneficial in describing the art world. It removes the façade of the artist creating art for arts sake and impresses upon them the truth of art, that it is created, marketed, and distributed just like any other product. Although this has been happening for ages, it has become more of an overt cultural norm as art managers become more present within art society. These art managers have been studying how to market, sell, and price point art in schools and have no disillusionment with the mysticism of art being removed.

     Funding comes from companies to the arts for a variety of reasons. Businesses can break into new areas using arts as a means; it can also help them through political and social situations. Good will is given to companies who help fund the arts and make it available to be seen. Through the arts their hidden agendas of recognition in society can be exercised, as their advertisements are prominent throughout promotional materials and elsewhere. Perhaps in an inadvertent way this has caused museums to self-censor. In an effort to create exhibits that will be seen, they have to procure and show work that will entice a company to fund it (as well as their museum and their jobs, really it’s a means of survival). As museums pander to the needs of the company’s, they can no longer freely say that they are solely institutions of learning.

     Meanwhile there are artists who are still trying to create work within the context of art for arts sake, which seems nearly impossible once it is in any real standing within a public realm. There are social and political contexts that surround the piece and the piece cannot be separated. Artists would like to think that their art could be made and held in a pure bubble of conscious creativity. Art making itself is informed by the thoughts of the artist that are created by social adherences, no matter how overt or subliminal. There is a small area where art can be so ambiguous that its meaning can be misinterpreted or interpreted in multiple ways as to subvert the process of industrialization of the art making, but mostly that is an act that is fewer and further between.

Reverse Anthropology - Guillermo Gómez-Peña

Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a performance artist living in the San Francisco area. He considers using his artwork as a means for blurring the lines between art and political activism. He brings into question all the viewer believes they know about race, gender, sexuality, stereotypes, and class through use of elaborate costumes, and extreme “audience participation”. The audience can be involved directly and actually ‘perform’ with Gómez-Peña and his troop or they can watch, but in doing so are also implicated by gazing upon the acts that he does. It forces the viewers to turn their gaze on things from outward forces to inward workings to sharply question what they think they know. Gómez-Peña has had difficulties in getting reactions to his work in the place he lives, San Francisco, as they are welcoming of a type of art the subvert political, gender, and class norms, and actually welcomes and expects it. He constantly tries to break or blur borders, which also plays to the issue of immigration that is consistent through his work. He believes all artists have must make use of their critical voices and make sure that they are heard so that those in power listen to them and think about their ideas concerning the number of issues Gómez-Peña works though in his art.

     Through some research online I was able to find some of his video performances and I found them to be very aggressive and uncomfortable, which I do believe is what he is partially going for. I can only image that his performances in real time resonate much more with the viewer in participation.

Assignment #1: (part two) Create a Piece of Artwork as your Artist and Write an Artist Statement as your Artist

Sarah Zuckerman

September 9, 2013

Research Methodologies AVT 600

Assignment #1, Part 2

Artist Statement as Sarah Irvin

Moving Landscapes

Having grown up in Southern California, there were continual bouts of movement in the terrain due to the abundance of earthquakes. My entire life I have felt that my surroundings are moving and changing around me, regardless now of where I actually am. I think about the tectonic plates that are moving beneath my feet and how, with that, my environment is always shifting.

While observing my surroundings, I find that words come to mind that have a specific color I associate with them. I write these words on the paper with ink, push and pull the ink with squeegees to merge and distort the words until they are completely changed from their original written form. These paintings are interpretations of the feeling of movement within a given landscape. 

Piece Created as Sarah I.

Assignment #1: Make a "Sarah Zuckerman" Original

Sarah Zuckerman

September 9, 2013

Research Methodologies AVT 600

Assignment #1

Make a “Sarah Zuckerman” Original

Materials Needed:

Water-based block printing ink (colors needed: red, blue, yellow, black, and white. Optional colors: all others)

Linoleum block (5x7 or larger)

Brayer(s)

Palette Knives

Printmaking Paper (your choice)

Newsprint

Block carving tools (your choice)

Access to a printing press (your choice)
Additional materials for adding to prints: pencil, paint, found objects, glue, thread, etc.

Directions:

Select a size of linoleum block. Tear paper to appropriate size. You can choose to have a border or to have your print go to the edges (termed bleed print).

Choose a photograph that has elements in it that can stand out from the background of a scene.

Create a sketch based on the photograph to decide how you will use your block most effectively through a reductive method* of linoleum printing.

Choose colors for each layer.

Use a brayer to add a layer of ink to the block. Do not make it too thick or too thin.

When running through the press, place the paper on top of the block and protective cover (i.e. newsprint) on top and below the block/paper combination.

Run the block through the press. Make sure you test the pressure of the press prior to adding color for printing so you can determine if the press is too tight or too loose. If the press is too loose the color will not come out as desired, it may slide or be patchy. If the press is too tight the ink will push out the sides of the print and possibly ruin your block.

Use the entire block to lay down your first block of color, unless there is a necessary use of white in the imagery.

Clean the block in between each color run (with soap and water if water based ink) wait for the first layer to dry. Dry time depends on ink type (water based inks dry after about 10-20 minutes).

When doing the second, and subsequent layers, use the linocut tools provided to carve into the block to create a representation of the photograph. (Cut away from you and your hand so you do not cut yourself.)

Do not do any fewer than two layers and no more than five layers.

The number of prints produced can range from two to a print number of your choice. In each of the prints create or add another layer using hand applied methods including but not limited to painting, drawing, sewing into, or gluing objects that enhance the images and their meaning. The addition must not obliterate the image but act as a way to draw the viewers’ eye to a particular portion of the print, in each print.

While you do the additions you can work on the pieces simultaneously or individually.

When finished please let all pieces dry fully. Each image should be the same size, as well as the size of paper should be the same for each image.

You may choose to listen to music while you do any portion of the process.

*Reductive method of linoleum printing:

In a reductive print the artist removes more material from the same block prior to each printing. Print several copies of each layer as you print because you will not be able to go back and print that level again once you have cut away for the next. Think about how each layer of color will interact. You can use opaque colors or translucent colors depending on the image you select. You print the second level over the first layer, the third layer goes on top of the second layer (that has already gone over the first) and so on.